Content by Keyword: Place-Based Issues and Initiatives

The SC2 teams’ work was originally overseen by members of the DPC. This responsibility was transitioned to the White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2 Council) when it was formed in 2012. 17
The overall structure of the pilot consisted of the SC2 teams, each of which included a team lead and broader membership, the SC2 C

Given the timing of the SC2 pilot on the heels of the Great Recession, the dedication of federal agency resources to the engagement was threatened by budgetary constraints. For agencies with staff already stretched to deliver existing programs, committing staff to the pilot presented a major challenge. Participating agencies had to adjust work ass

One of the first steps in operationalizing the SC2 pilot concept was to assemble a group of federal agencies willing to commit staff and resources to the pilot. 15 The initial group of involved agencies emerged out of an interagency group that began meeting with White House staff to explore how to be more responsive to distressed cities, leading

This chapter discusses how agencies and pilot cities prepared for implementation and their perspectives on participating in the SC2 pilot. Steps included federal agencies agreeing to participate, the selection of pilot cities, an assessment process to identify pilot cities’ challenges and opportunities, and the selection and assignment of team m

Study data are limited in several ways. First, the data collected were limited to the first 18 months of the pilot implementation per the requirements of the evaluation; as such, approximately 6 months of the implementation period were not explored and the study does not account for the changes to SC2’s model due to lessons learned in the first

To assist with analysis and interpretation of qualitative data, the study team used NVivo 10 software to code the interview and focus group transcripts by topic and theme. Coding was conducted to explore common themes and identify key examples across data sources that help answer the study’s research questions. Responses to the team member surve

To answer the study’s research questions, the evaluation team conducted a process study to investigate how the SC2 teams operated and to document the consistencies and variations between sites, framing our analysis within the context of the SC2 pilot programmatic logic model (Exhibit 1).

In September 2011, after a kick-off orientation for all of the team members, the SC2 teams began working with their respective cities. In the early stages of the implementation, SC2 teams worked with city partners to identify priority areas for SC2 team attention and developed work plans to guide the implementation. Throughout the engagement, SC2

Once the pilot cities were selected, members of the Domestic Policy Council worked with the participating federal agencies to assemble the SC2 teams. Each pilot city had a SC2 team with a team lead and a small number of federal employees who were deployed to live and work in the chosen city, along with a larger number of federal staff assigned to

The SC2 pilot was implemented in six cities representing different parts of the country, different economic structures and causes for decline, and different opportunities for revitalization. As Exhibit 2 illustrates, the cities ranged in size from relatively small to large metropolitan areas.
The pilot cities all faced budgetary constraints and

The SC2 pilot was focused on six cities: Chester, PA; Cleveland, OH; Detroit, MI; Fresno, CA; Memphis, TN; and New Orleans, LA. These cities were selected by members of the DPC and senior leadership from participating agencies. This group used an iterative process that included assessing the cities’ relative economic distress (measured by a numb

As described in more detail in the SC2 annual report, 11 many American communities are economically distressed due to restructuring of the national and global economy, which has often resulted in localized job loss, population decline, and increased rates of concentrated poverty. These cities are working to rebuild their economies in the afterma

Beginning in 2011, the White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) implemented a comprehensive pilot initiative designed to partner with local leaders to encourage economic stabilization and recovery in some of the most economically distressed U.S. cities.

In the time following the formal evaluation period of this study, there have been a number of examples of embedding lessons learned from SC2’s approach across other agencies and cities. For example, other federal place-based initiatives were developed with significant input from the SC2 Council. In particular, Promise Zones incorporated SC2’s

Following the timeframe of this study, the SC2 Council worked with each SC2 team to ensure that the Round 1 pilot locations would continue to have access to the technical assistance and other resources offered by the initiative. In particular, each SC2 team confirmed that senior city leadership in current pilot locations had a direct line of commu

To recruit and select federal team members for second round locations, the SC2 initiative created position descriptions for team leads and team members. These position descriptions took into account the most important attributes of each role as identified during the SC2 team pilot study. These position descriptions were used to introduce potential

The SC2 council, partly in response to the Pilot Study’s Interim Report findings, modified the way cities were selected to host SC2 teams. In Round 2, the SC2 Council ran a competition to determine the SC2 cities that were selected. Each interested city was asked to submit a written application that outlined the city’s priorities for the SC2

In the spring of 2014, a second round of SC2 teams were deployed in seven U.S. cities: St. Louis, MO; Gary, IN; Flint, MI; Brownsville, TX; Rockford, IL; Macon, GA; and Rocky Mount, NC. The SC2 Council and its partner agencies implemented a number of the changes recommended in this report in preparation for this second round of implementation. The

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